All The Best Food In New Jersey You Need To Eat In 2021

NEW JERSEY — This year has been tumultuous for the restaurant industry. When COVID-19 hit, the impact on restaurants was immediate.

Many shut down or were forced to pivot to curbside delivery or outdoor seating to remain in business. But despite the challenges thrown at them, New Jersey’s dining scene continues to dazzle with delectable cuisine.

Patch put together a compilation of all the "best" lists for 2020, citing some of the nation's most respected sources that identified New Jersey's restaurants, bars and pizza places that were not only the best in the state but among the best in America.

New Jersey Monthly, the go-to source for everything food - recently released its list of 30 best restaurants from around the Garden State. And many of them are in our Patch neighborhoods.

Here's the list:

• Aarzu, Freehold: Chefs Dayanand Shetty and Shravan Shetty (not related) give a modern twist to Indian cuisine. New Jersey Monthly suggests customers sample the duck paratha tacos, which uses Indian flatbread to cradle the curried meat, or avocado mango bhel, a colorful twist to the puffed rick snack from Mumbai.
• Mistral, Princeton: This is a local favorite. Chefs Scott Anderson and Mike Ryan present complex yet delicious cuisine made from locally sourced produce. The restaurant changes its menu regularly, and New Jersey monthly says each bite here is "meaningful" and you may “want to linger over it.”
• Chez Catherine, Westfield: The restaurant was able to set up outdoor dining in its parking lot over the summer. The owners also upgraded their ventilation system. But Chez Catherine is the go-to destination for modern French cuisine. Chef Christine Migton has removed Foie gras from the menu and included “thin-sliced steak tartare with tabasco-Worcestershire mayo,” said New Jersey Monthly.
• Nicholas Barrel and Roost, Red Bank: This restaurant has graced every New Jersey Monthly best restaurant list since 2007. In keeping with the changing times, the restaurant has transformed into a family-friendly eatery.
• Poached Pear Bistro, Point Pleasant Beach: After being shut down for a few months during the pandemic, this restaurant continued to draw customers who kept coming back for takeout. After resuming indoor dining, New Jersey Monthly noted that their signature dishes, braised pork chop with red cabbage marmalade and crispy spaetzle, remained “compelling as ever.”

You can check out the entire list here.

Also making the state proud were four chefs and restaurants who were semifinalists for the prestigious James Beard awards.

Those nominated were:

• Outstanding chef: Maricel Presilla, Cucharamama, Hoboken
• Outstanding hospitality: 5 Fox Place, Jersey City
• Outstanding restaurateur: Cookie Till, Margate (Steve and Cookie's, Ventnor No. 7311)
• Rising star chef of the year: Robbie Felice, Viaggio Ristorante, Wayne

As the pandemic raged and people isolated at home, they turned to comfort food. It's no surprise then, that pizza became the most delivered food in America, according to Fortune magazine.

So, Patch decided to include some of the state’s best pizza places in our roundup of the best of 2020.

And for that, we went to The Daily Meal who placed four New Jersey pizza shops on their list of best in the country.

The Daily Meal considered more than 1,000 pizzas while compiling their list. They looked for qualities like nuanced sauce, well-distributed cheese, a flavorful crust and an overall balance of ingredients.

Razza Pizza Artigianale in Jersey City was fourth nationally.

Here are the four pizza places and their national ranking:

• No. 4 Razza Pizza Artigianale (Jersey City): The wood-fired pizza here is delicious. According to the Daily Meal the shop's top seller is a “Margherita pizza with the essentials: tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, sea salt, basil and California extra virgin olive oil."
• No. 36 Star Tavern (Orange): This a family-owned and operated restaurant that is well known for its thin crust pie. The Daily meals suggests the “Old School Everything, featuring onions, sausage, pepperoni, peppers, mushrooms and anchovies."
• No. 58 Santillo's Brick Oven Pizza (Elizabeth): Another family-owned business, passed down three generation. This restaurant “still uses the same recipe Lou Santillo developed in 1918, which means grandson Al has to shovel 13 loads of coal into the oven twice a day," said The Daily Meal.
• No. 64 Pizza Den (Princeton): The Daily Meal listed this place for its "tantalizing toppings.”

You can see the whole list here.

So, if you haven’t visited any of the above-mentioned eateries, 2021 might be year to do so. Especially now that we have the vaccine.